The Cult of Liquid Death and Why Brand Matters Way More Than People Think

The Liquid Death Mountain Water $700M valuation is just bonkers. Marketers, this is now your go-to case study on the value of branding.

That’s because their product is….water. Expertly packaged in a tall boy aluminum can adorned with an eye-catching melting skull logo.

More than ever, we have options as consumers. Yes, price and quality matter. But in a commoditized world, brand matters way more than people think. It’s a differentiator and competitive advantage.

When you want to “Murder your thirst,” on a hot, steamy day with beads of sweat starting to form on your forehead, what cold, refreshing beverage are you going to choose?

Liquid Death is counting on its loud, brash, creative, pants-dropping, earth-quaking brand to sell in that moment – not its product.

With more and more identical products on the market, the companies that invest in brand (like Liquid Death) are always going to be one step ahead.

Building a Brand from Scratch

Let’s turn back the clock. Liquid Death was started in 2016 to shake up the boring beverage industry. Co-Founder, Mike Cessario, wanted to give consumers a reason to choose a healthy beverage when out with friends vs. a soda or alcoholic beverage (in this case, water).

“They don’t use fun to market…unhealthy beverages, they want to own fun. We’re basically doing that with water. We want to be able to take the healthiest thing you can drink…and brand it.”

That means investing in great content and creative. That’s what tells a story and builds a brand people believe in and want to be associated with.

This has been the Liquid Death strategy from the very beginning in 2017: build an extraordinary, fun, memorable brand to sell a commodity. “In a category where all the products are perceived as the same…it’s more of a brand play," said Cessario. "We believe if we can make you laugh, we have a way better chance of you giving us your $1.69 than the faceless brand next to us.”

And Liquid Death has knocked it out of the park with content on its owned channels, plus a high-profile TV spot during the 2022 Super Bowl.

People don’t always want what you make; they want what you sell.

“If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile."
-Seth Godin

“If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile," said Seth Godin. "The thing you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions.”

This is Liquid Death’s thesis. And it’s working.

The Value of Reputation

If we step back for second…I think we can all acknowledge the absurdity of all of this, right?

I mean, it’s freaking water. Agua. Adam’s ale. H20. In an aluminum can. At the end of the day, it’s indistinguishable compared to other waters.

And that fact that consumers are buying it is completely busts the myth of rational choice theory of microeconomics: “Individuals use rational calculations to make rational choices and achieve outcomes that are aligned with their own personal objectives. These results are also associated with maximizing an individual's self-interest” (Investopedia).

If we were completely rational beings, all we’d care about is price, quality, and service. But when it comes to purchasing decisions, especially with commodities, this theory crashes and burns.

“All water is created equal; as long as it’s clean, the body is happy with it” writes Helen Rosner in the New Yorker. “The brain, though, is harder to please—especially given a modicum of disposable income and an abundance of commercial choice.”

Our choices are so often not rational. They’re motivated by emotion and the culture around us. Brand = reputation. And Liquid Death has quite the rep in the market.

The Playbook Starts With Great Creative

Liquid Death is stealing the playbook of other players in the beverage industry. Look at brands of beer. They’re all nearly identical.

“The customer is literally drinking the advertising, and the advertising is the brand.”
-Luke Sullivan

“The customer is literally drinking the advertising, and the advertising is the brand," write Luke Sullivan in Hey Whipple, Squeeze This (a must read, by the way).

And consumers get this. They choose the brand they feel the most affinity for. In this case, it starts with great creative.

“Disciplined creativity is often the last remaining legal means you have to gain an unfair advantage over the competition," wrote advertising executive, Ed McCabe.

Liquid Death has built an engaging brand through its social media, merch, and packaging design. Their visual identity is a huge competitive advantage, especially on the internet.

In an age of memes, trolling, and ridiculous online humor, Liquid Death fits right in. Which makes them stand out in their crowded market. Take a look at online interest in the brand name over time. It's just exploded into relevance over the last couple of years.

On top of that, the brand boasts a commitment to sustainability. Their Super Bowl commercial aired with the hashtag #DeathToPlastic, and their aluminum cans are better for the environment than plastic bottles. As they point out online, its cans are “Infinitely Recyclable (Plastic Bottles Are Not).”

So it's become THE drink of choice for young consumers who want an alternative to alcoholic beverages with the same 'cool' factor.

Stories + connections + experience = brand. The formula is working for Liquid Death.

The Sales Impact

Sales overnight, brand over time. When you take a look at Liquid Death's revenue, you can see they're now starting to reap the rewards of their branding efforts.

They did $3M in sales in 2019. That's exploded almost 4200% to $130M in 2022. Liquid Death products are sold online and in about 29,000 retail locations nationwide.

Merch is also a huge source of revenue and a key community building strategy for the brand. In 2021, sales of merch surpassed $3M. And according to Cessario, about 52% of direct-to-consumer purchases last year also included an item from the brand’s online merchandise store.

“Merch is a very serious part of our business, just like it is for Metallica or Travis Scott, or any of these huge artists where merch and apparel is a huge part of what they do, even though technically what they do is make music that people consume."

We choose the brand we feel the most affinity for. And merch has been hugely successful for Liquid Death.

The Value of Branding

Yeah, the value of a brand can be hard to quantify sometimes. But in this case, the product is the brand.

“A brand isn’t just a semantic construct, either," writes Sullivan. "The relationship between the brand and its customers has monetary value; it can amount to literally billions of dollars.”

Case in point: Liquid Death.

In fact, I’d argue that Liquid Death has a sh*tty product but a great brand. And they’re winning as a result.

Well, ya did it, Mike. You proved that brand matters way more than people think.

On behalf of marketers around the world, I applaud you. And I raise this monstrosity of a tallboy can of **double checks contents** water to congratulate you, take a sip, and savor the taste of a kickass brand.